Rural Musings in the Architects Journal

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Matt Wood

In this week’s AJ (pay-walled, I’m afraid), Rory Olcayto reports that mega-star Dutch architect and theorist Rem Koolhaas is thinking about the countryside. German culture-magazine 32c runs an essay by him this month which previews a book he is writing on the same subject.
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Thatch-Fest #4

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Matt Wood

The Fraser Kirkland Moor house at Ockington (previous post) also put me in mind of the pool house by Kathryn Findlay I wrote about in my ‘Thatch-Fest’ series back in February 2011. Looking back at that I ended up once again at Moering Architekten, who have since posted several other thatched projects on their website. Continue reading →

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A Voysey/Stirling Mash-Up

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Matt Wood

In fact another project by Kirkland Fraser Moor (the Headlands House) was on a concept-board for a new house in Norwich I did over the summer. The project was on the outer edge of Norwich’s ‘Golden Triangle’, where amongst some rather grand late-C19th and early C20th suburban architecture pan-tiles give way to plain-tiles. Continue reading →

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Nice ‘Big Roof’

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Matt Wood

It’s been a while since my last post – nothing since May to be precise. A ‘white-paper’ inspired by the Government’s self-build initiative soaked up all available writing-time for a couple of months, and then I was holding off in hope of being able to tell you about a real-life Community Right to Build Project that we’re involved with at Lucas Hickman Smith. As it turns out this is moving incredibly slowly, so I can’t really write about it yet – but will do so as soon as I can. In the end it’s a house by Kirkland Fraser Moor which prompts me to break radio silence. Continue reading →

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Self-Building Bridges

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Matt Wood

In a previous post I suggested that mainstream commercial developers and the major house-builders regard selling development land as serviced self-build plots as nothing more than a lot of hassle and a lost profit margin – and that the new self-build clause in the NPPF (Para.159) is intended to enable Local Authorities to make them do it. But there is perhaps a silver-lining to this self-build cloud, from the developer’s point of view. Continue reading →

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Self-Build: The Price is Right

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Matt Wood

As described in the previous posts, the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) places local authorities under a duty to assess and cater for the demand for self-build land in their area. East Staffordshire seem to be the first off the blocks with the assessment part of this process, and it seems they are minded to cater for any demand they identify through policies or planning conditions on large-scale housing developments. But we shouldn’t expect the house-builders and other developers to accept this new regime with open arms. Continue reading →

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Self Build: First Off the Blocks?

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Matt Wood

And just in case you thought the idea of Local Authorities assessing the demand for self-build land in their area, and then catering for that demand, sounds far-fetched (see previous post), take a look at this. Continue reading →

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The NPPF: A Game-Changer for Self Build?

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Matt Wood

There was a flurry of Tweet-traffic last week around the launch of Housing Minister Grant Shapps’ new self-build initiative. Regular readers may recall I wrote about this a couple of times last year – including this post where I suggested the easiest way to increase significantly the flow of land into the self-build sector would be to make house-builders included a quota of serviced plots on each large site they develop. Continue reading →

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Hand-Made in Norfolk

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Matt Wood

There was a distinctly ‘hand-made’ feel to Pecha Kucha Norwich Vol.3 at Cinema City on Sunday evening. Continue reading →

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Do I look FAT in this?

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Matt Wood

I was intrigued to see some coverage of Ruralise’s Tayler and Green feature on ‘Fantastic Journal’, the architecture and design blog of Charles Holland, a Director at architects FAT. Continue reading →

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